The manufacture of counter tops is a large industry, worldwide. These top surfaces have many uses: on kitchen counters, bars, tables, bathroom applications, workshops, gardening sheds, light manufacturing—the list goes on.
An ongoing problem associated with sizing counter tops to a specific base is the difficulty in making neat and aesthetically pleasing corners, bump-outs, and cut-outs. Given the wide, formed counter tops on the market today, such turns are difficult to achieve while still maintaining a professional appearance in the finished countertop. This problem is especially acute in the case of custom-manufactured counter tops, which tend to incorporate more corners, bump-outs and cut-outs than would an off-the-shelf counter top. Thus it would be desirable to provide a counter top edge which could be easily glued to the front edge of a counter, and is readily angle-cut to follow counter top corners, bump-outs, and cut-outs.
Another problem associated with existing, mass-produced countertops is their height and width. The finished longitudinal countertop edge tends to feature a downwardly-extending lip intended to hang over the base front upper edge; the finishing veneer extends forwards across the countertop substrate upper surface (typically fiber board), and then curves downwards and backwards to meet the lip lower edge. This creates a thick, bulbous look to the countertop finished edge, which could be as much as a quarter inch thicker than the substrate itself. Thus it would be desirable to provide a counter top edge which is of the same thickness as the substrate itself.
Still another problem associated with mass-produced countertops is the sparcity of counter top edge shapes available—they tend to all have semi-circular or beveled edges. Thus, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus capable of producing any desired cross-sectional counter top edge shape, be it semi-circular, oval, regular or irregular polygonal, etc.